


burn

by evil bunny wolf (evil_bunny_king)



Series: corvidae and whiskey [3]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: F/M, all the feels, coffee dates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-13
Updated: 2016-05-13
Packaged: 2018-06-08 03:52:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6838012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evil_bunny_king/pseuds/evil%20bunny%20wolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“The thing is,” he tries again, “the thing is the man I am - the man I’ve become - he shouldn’t want this."</p><p>-<br/>Frank and Karen have an overdue conversation over a cup of coffee.</p>
            </blockquote>





	burn

“Frank.”

Karen Page is watching him. Standing there beneath the lamppost in her tight little pencil skirt and kitten heels, that little satchel of hers tucked under her elbow the way she does to try and show she means business, that she won’t be fucked with. It’s around noon and the sun’s burning through the morning smog, setting the gold in her hair alight. She’s got it tucked behind her ear. She’s also tucked that .380 of hers amongst her papers.

She’s standing on the threshold of the only coffee joint in the entirety of Hell’s kitchen that understands what an espresso should taste like.

“Fancy meeting you here.”

He’s not surprised she’d found his hole in the wall. He’d not made that much of an effort to hide it; hell he thinks he’s even left a cup at hers, once or twice, but she’s never taken this step before. Never sought him out explicitly for all that they’ve run into each other outside of her apartment, tripped over each other at crime scenes and soon-to-be crime scenes.

He considers the determined line of her mouth, the way her fingers are clenched, white knuckled, around the satchel strap.

He takes the final few steps to the entrance and opens the door for her.

“After you, ma’am.”

She looks surprised. At the deference or at how well he’s taking this, he hasn’t quite decided, but she takes the few steps inside - her head held high, prepared for war as she sets her heels to the linoleum, and he can't help his smile.

“Head right,” he says as he follows her through, swiping at his nose. He cases the room: two cooks in the kitchen, the waitress at the bar, the regulars nursing hangovers in their boothed seats. There shouldn’t be any trouble tonight. “The table at the far end, with the split seam.”

He slips himself into the seat against the wall as she pulls out the spindly little fold-up, preempting his reach for the back of her chair, and when they’re settled he considers her again, relaxing back into the casual angle that allows him a clear view from the floor-to-ceiling windows to the exits.

"What do you need?" He asks, without preamble.

She wants something. She wouldn’t be here, otherwise – and there’s no compromise in her expression this time, no misgivings, no portfolio of excuses. Whatever it is, she must want it more than she needs it, and he reckons she'll even try and fight for it, too.

She briefly looks surprised at the question. But then she drags her lower lip between her teeth and meets his gaze, in a way that would’ve had him buckled him to his bloodied knees, once, and he feels a note of caution snag at the back of his mind.

_Don’t get in too deep._

She leans across the table, placing her folded hands a calculated distance between them.

"What is this?” she asks, carefully. Precisely. “What is this- thing, that we have between us?"

He doesn’t answer, at first. He looks at her, askance, as the waitress (Betty Holder, life time resident of the kitchen and the lower tier apartment she shares with her girlfriend and online gambling problem) sashays past and sets his usual before him before turning to Karen with a smile.

"How about you, love?"

Karen shakes her head, those big eyes of hers not leaving his own and that note of caution becomes a shout.

"I'm fine, thank you. I’ll let you know."

Betty smiles, kindly and absent, probably thinking about the bridge game she’s going to blow her paycheck on later, and wanders back to her regulars, leaving them in the relative quiet once more.

Karen Page watches him.

He draws the glass between his palms, feeling the heat of it scorch his skin.

"What is it that you think we are doing, exactly?” he asks.

She laughs, as if she’d been expecting that; glances unseeingly through the window before she turns back to him and dips her head, searching for his gaze.

"Don't make me to spell it out for you, Frank.” Her voice is firm, but not harsh. Determined, and that sounds good on her, cutting through his half-formed idea of feeding her bullshit. “You know exactly what I'm talking about."

He does. And there is a tension growing in the muscles of his neck, burning itself into his shoulders.

"What about it, then," he settles on, rolling the glass between his hands. He draws himself straighter to toss it back, a little sooner than he normally would and it burns a little on the way down but shit, does it taste great.

She sets her jaw and moves back in her seat, crossing her legs smartly at the knee. She stares him down.

"The part where we pretend it's not happening, Frank.”

He places the empty glass between them.

Frank Castle was not one to run from a fight. Especially not one like this – and he’d been in his fair share of them; hell he and his old lady would duke it out at least once a month until he'd sit down and talk, especially after a tour; she’d had him practically trained to heel before the end-

But she, _Maria_ , she was dead and Frank was dead. He’d executed him, ruthlessly and brutally and he’d done it in front of Karen too, had let her watch and _hoped_ that it’d - destroy, what figment of an idea she’d built up in her mind that he was anything more than what he was. That he was anything more than the monster he’d been made to be, through the blood and the shit and smoke all sunk in so deep he would never get the stink out.

It was supposed to be an end, in those woods. With Schoonover- death, endings, and an afterlife, until a bullet found him too. 

But it wasn’t.

 “Alright, then.” He props himself on his elbows, leaning forward. They’re eye to eye. “Alright.”

She wanted answers, definitions. Shit, she deserved it, too, but his heartbeat’s picked up to a mile a minute and he can’t get his words to cooperate.

She waits for more, and the cheap neon lighting does no justice for how _blue_ her eyes are.

“So?” she prompts. She’s nervous, he can hear it in the way her voice shakes but shit, his hands are shaking too.

He takes a breath and forces his hands still. She deserves honesty.

“You’re right,” he says, finally. “Things have changed.”

Her brow furrows as he pauses, her mouth opening to press for more or simply tell him off again but he stills her with a flutter of his fingers on the table-top, his gaze sliding to the side, away as he fights his thoughts in order.

“Things have changed, and you’re no longer just anyone to me, like I’m not just anyone for you," he continues. "There is – we-”

He runs a hand through his hair in a sudden fit of exasperation, pulling at the longer ends, and the moment stretches on his exhale.

“The thing is,” he tries again, “the thing is the man I am - the man I’ve become - he shouldn’t want this. Hell, you shouldn’t want this, want me, you know I’m fucked up and that’s not going to change, that’s never going to change. But what we have, I _want it_ and I want _you_ and so, that means I’m not the man I thought I was – but I’m also not the man I used to be, and so I-”

He braces himself on the edge of the table.

“I don’t know what to do with that. Not yet. Don’t know what I can do. You know?”

Her hand closes around his. He jolts, a little – he’s not sure when she moved, she’s placed her satchel on the seat beside her and everything, but her fingers are cool and gentle over his own, and they hold him tight.

“But you do want this,” she says quietly. Blue eyes and soft gaze and how does he deserve this, how does a disaster like him deserve this.

“Yeah.” His throat clicks around the words. “Yeah, I do.”

She runs her thumb across the backs of his knuckles, one by one.

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this for the tumblr kastleweek - prompt: 'burn'. :')


End file.
